One evening in Peru I started talking to two
sisters. Jessica, age 14 and Odalis, age 27.

Jessica was talking about how it
was not fair that her father punished her other sister,
Fabiana, and made her come back home from school in Lima
where she was happy studying psychology. She also was
crying as she said her father will never understand her
and she would rather talk to her dog than to her parents
and she doesn't want to tell them anything anymore.

The older sister, Odalis, was
sitting there with a cold look on her face while Jessica
cried. When Jessica stopped talking, the first thing the
sister said was "Las cosas no son asi, Jessica"
- That's now how things are Jessica.

S. Hein
February 20, 2005
Pomocochas, Peru

-

Note, this is also a good example
of a lack of understanding. It is not hard to imagine what Jessica
would have said if we had asked her "Jessica, how
much do you feel understood by your sister right now,
from 0 to 10?"

Here is part of an email which was sent to
me by a 13, almost 14 year old in England.

I can't do sport tomorrow. Mum
pestered me till I told her what was wrong....She got
angry at me when I said that I was just really
worried about going to athletics! She said "Lea,
you're just being stupid. Everyone has to do
things they don't like...Stop being so selfish.
You can't not do it. Get used to it!"

I felt quite hurt. So I said to
her "That is the reason I didn't tell you.
Because I knew you would get angry." Then she
used the excuse that when she was in school she had
to do it, and said that I shouldn't have so much self
pity!!

This girl is suicidal. She
self-harms regularly. She has thought seriously about
running away. She has a very, very low self-esteem and
has been convinced that she is stupid. But when we chat,
it is obvious to me she is exceptionally smart.

This girl is being psychologically
destroyed. And at this point in her life she is defending
her mother, saying she is a "good mother." If
she kills herself at some point in the future, we should
not be surprised or ask "How could she do such a
senseless thing?"

What is even worse, is that she
goes to a very expensive, very elite, private school. But
she has never been taught the meaning of the word
"invalidation." And it is unlikely this word
will ever be used at her school unless she herself
introduces it. And it can be expected that if she were to
use it, she would only get invalidated and dismissed by
an insecure, defensive adult who would say something
like, "Stop trying to act so smart." Or,
"You are just looking for attention." In fact,
when they found out at her school that she cuts, this is
exactly what she was told."

Let's also remember that all of
this is perfectly legal. No mother has ever been
convicted of abuse for invalidating her teenage daughter,
even to the point of daughter not wanting to hare
anything with her and instead trying to keep everything
inside until she can no longer stand the pain and
pressure and then tries to kill herself to stop it. And I
think it is fair to say that no teacher has ever been
fired for invalidating an intelligent, sensitive young
teenager.

I'll say again, if this girl kills
herself, no one should be surprised.

I was just talking to someone. I said
"Susan is a bit annoying". Then my friend said
"I don't find she is."

When people say something like this
we don't feel understood. We might start to debate with
them but this imediately creates a conflict. Or we might
just be silenced. We might just drop it. The other person
then will never know why we felt annoyed by Susan. They
miss out on a chance to get to know us. We also feel more
alone in the world.

All these little things, these
small interactions add up. A sensitive person will just
stop sharing their feelings if they get too many of these
kinds of responses.

Once, when living in Peru, I was trying to
explain what the expression "Stop feeling sorry for
yourself" means. I was writing about it because that
is what a teen told me her mother and sister say to her
when she feels depressed. (See convo)

In Spanish they say "Lo
siento" when they say want to convey something like
the feeling that we say when we say "I'm
sorry." Translated literally it means "I feel
it." To say "I feel sad" they say "Me
siento triste." Sentir is what is called a reflexive
verb in Spanish. So they say "Me siento..."
"Te sientes" or "Se siente". Kind of
like saying "I feel myself sad" or "You
feel yourself sad."

So feeling sorry for yourself would
be something like "Lo siento me siento". But
this would make no sense in Spanish. To try to tell
someone not to feel sorry for themselves would be kind of
like telling them not to feel anything at all, or not to
feel their own feelings. And really, this is what the
message is in English, too. Don't feel anything for
yourself. You don't matter. Your feelings don't matter.

PS - What they say a lot here in
Peru a lot is "Don't be so egotistical." This
is pretty much the same idea. It is telling you not to
think about your own feelings or needs.

Here is part of an email I got after Laura
left me. It is from someone who I have never met and had
only written me once before, and obviously doesn't know
me very well and hasn't read much, if anything, from my
page on invalidation.

Everybody has to be happy,
and sometimes even if we do not like it, we have to
respect people's decisions. If she decided to go,
then accept that and move on. There are other things
in life besides relationshps.

To me it is almost incredible
someone could say this. I feel sorry for this person. Not
only do I feel invalidated but I feel almost totally not
understood. Laura leaving me hurt me so much, and this
part of the email shows zero empathy or understanding of
how much the relationship meant to me. I feel sorry for
the person that wrote it because she said "There are
other things in life besides relationships."

I have lived long enough and
suffered enough to know that relationships are far and
away the most important thing in life. Especially a
loving romantic relationship. Laura didn't realize how
important love was. In her heart she knew it, but she was
confused by what her culture taught her. Her culture
taught her that degrees and jobs and houses and material
things and "family", even it means an abusive
mother, is important.

It is really almost incredible
someone who doesn't even know me would be telling what do
do. "..then accept that and move on." As if it
were that easy. I hope that this person learns something
about validation and invalidation before she has
children.

Also, what is this about
"Everybody has to be happy"? What does that
mean? Does it mean I "have to be" happy? In
other words I am obligated to be? Forced to be? How can
you order someone to be happy and tell them "You
have to be happy!"

There is a reason we feel pain. It
is so we can know what is important, and so we can change
things that need to be changed.

This person who wrote me, by the
way, is also from a Latin American, country. She was
taught that to help someone you give them advice. If she
doesn't learn some new things she will most likely
destroy any relationships she has in the future.

I feel really frustrated right now.
I feel offended by what this person said. Laura was so
important to me. She was the most important thing in my
life. I went years looking for someone like her. I have
felt suicidal since she left. I don't appreciate advice
like this. I resent it. But I also feel frustrated that I
can't change the person who wrote this email. I imagine
she will feel defensive when she reads this, if she does.
It would take too much work to try to teach this person
not to invalidate people, and to change her misguided
beliefs about what is important in life. It is probably
too late for this person. But on the other hand I don't
want to say that as if I don't think she can learn new
things. Yet from this email it shows she has a long, long
way to go. I can only offer her my site and wish her the
best.

This is from a university professor's
website. I am not sure of the true motive for the
professor posting it but, I suspect part of the
motivation was that he felt guilty about invalidating the
student so he was trying to defend and justify himself,
or we might say convince himself that what he did was ok.
Clearly, though, it is very invalidating.

STUDENT: So you hated my
essay, huh?

Professor: What do you mean, "hated
it"? Where do you get that? You've got your
essay right there--What did I say? Read me the
first two words after your name, the first
comment I made about it.

STUDENT: "Good essay."

Professor: Why would I say that about an essay I
hated? If I had hated it, wouldn't I be more
likely to say something like, "Lousy
essay"?

STUDENT: Yeah, but you go on about all this stuff
wrong with it...

--

A little more analysis of this...

This is another example of how
someone can be very "educated," yet still lack
emotional knowledge and skills. In this case the
professor was also probably fairly insecure since he felt
such a strong need to defend himself. His innate
emotional intelligence, though, or what we might say in
this case his "conscience," was still was
sending him messages of discomfort what what he said to
the student.

Once I felt very depressed about
something. I called someone I knew. We met and she sat
down next to me. I started telling her how sad I was.
Before I was finished explaining why it I was so sad, she
said "Maybe it isn't that bad..." Then she
started talking.

I know she cared and was trying to
be helpful, but what she said didn't help me. In fact, I
felt more alone, less understood, amd more afraid to
share my feelings.

My friend told me I have nothing to
be depressed about and now I'm really upset she said
that.

I was with three of my friends. We're freshman in high
school. We were all sitting at a table and talking. My
friend said "I don't feel like doing anything. Let's
just all sit here and be depressed," and I said,
"yeah".

Then she said to me, "You have
nothing to be depressed about." Then she added,
"Yeah, so your mom yelled at you today but my mom
slapped me"

The reason she thinks I have nothing to be depressed
about is because I am the type of person who does not
talk about my problems. I feel embarrassed to talk about
what goes on in my family and I would start crying.

Today I was talking to
a 26 year old girl named Melissa. Melissa told me she had
lunch with her mother the other day. Melissa has never
met her father and it has been bothering her for years.

Melissa asked her
mother why the mother had three children with men who
were not responsible enough to be fathers. Melissa also
asked her why the mother lied on her birth certificate,
saying Melissa had been born in one place when actually
she was born in another. Melissa was just trying to make
some sense of her life, as many girls from dysfunctional
families do.

The mother, though, laughed at Melissa's questions,
saying that was a long time ago and there was no reason
to be talking about it now. Melissa said when she saw her
mother laughing at her she wanted to reach across the
table and hit her as hard as she could.

Melissa drinks,
smokes, has used drugs and has thought of killing
herself. And none of this is because of her lack of
emotional intelligence, as Mayer and Salovey mistakenly
suggest. In fact, Melissa is intelligent and sensitive.
She reads people quickly. Yet she is emotionally
unskilled and emotionally needy. She has learned to be
verbally hurtful when she feels hurt.

Melissa is another example of someone who is by nature
emotionally intelligent, but not according to the
prevailing definitions. I explained to Melissa what
invalidation was and told her it was psychological abuse
and she quickly agreed.

Melissa's emotionally abusive mother makes me think of a
screening program I heard about for teens USA which
supposedly was going to screen all teens for depression.
And it makes me wonder what would happen if we screened
the teenagers for invalidating parents and teachers. I
also wonder how much money the drug companies could make
if they could market a drug which made parents and
teachers learn what invalidation is and become better
listeners and more emotionally supportive.